


Let Them Be Left

by MiraiRah



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (assume any warnings relevant to the movies also apply here), (brief bevchie and stozier moments), Angst, Bi-Curiosity, Bullying, Canonical Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Friend Break Ups, Friendship, Gay Richie Tozier, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PTSD, Post-IT (2017), Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Slow Burn, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24938044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraiRah/pseuds/MiraiRah
Summary: They try to adjust, but the Losers Club is made up of seven kids with matching scars and a shared trauma they don't want to talk about. It doesn't last forever.After a fight with Richie, Eddie becomes isolated, trapped in his house with a troubled mother he loves (and hates) more than anything. Two years pass before they come together again. In that time, Richie manages to lose all of his other friends and never quite gets over his first love..Richie and Eddie throughout their teenage years, together and apart and together again.
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak & Sonia Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14





	1. Intro I. | Intro II.

**E.**

_Intro I._

Richie wears sleepless black under his eyes, and Eddie wears a dirty cast proclaiming LO ~~V~~ ER and stained with greywater and Richie’s blood. Eyes deep and ringed in Wellhouse shadows. Plaster over his palm where the crimson dried and smudged down to the color of Derry dirt. They’re alone in Eddie’s backyard, only they’re not really. His mom lifted up the curtain to keep an eye on them – she’s still there when he checks after ten minutes – and Richie’s barely said a word because he knows there’s no such thing as privacy at Eddie Kaspbrak’s house.

Eddie might be grounded forever so it’s this or nothing.

“Gimme those.” He steals the glasses straight off Richie's face and wipes them clean of finger grease on his own shirt. Richie barely gives more than a blind man's blink. His eyes close tight like a child’s when Eddie leans back over to slide his glasses back on with both hands, nose creased while Eddie’s cast is close to his face, a whiff of foul sweat-sewerage-antiseptic that’ll perfume his broken arm until it’s not broken anymore.

“What is it about this god-forsaken town,” Richie mutters after a while. He’d just looked back and locked eyes with Sonia peering out from the bottom corner of the dining room window, thick red face and tiny eyes unrepentant even when she’s caught. Eddie’s embarrassed by her, always has been, but this is ridiculous behavior even for her. “Everyone here’s fucking loco.”

“I guess we fit right in, don’t we?”

Even now Eddie’s hand twitches to his waist where he still keeps his inhaler though he knows he doesn’t need it, even though his throat isn’t closing in on him. Something to occupy his hands, that’s all. That’s what all the heroin addicts say, right? Something to keep them busy? What’s just one more shot of corticosteroids really gonna do to him?

Eddie does things to distract himself from worldly anxieties, microscopic threats burrowing into his skin at all hours of the day and the paranoia that begs him to claw them out. For Richie boredom is his mortal enemy so he distracts himself, anything to keep from doing bad things, stupid things. Richie, uncontrollable irresponsible irreplaceable Richie Tozier, who like Eddie is just a whirlwind with four limbs and difficulty focusing. He was never this good at sitting still _before._

“If I’m not normal,” Eddie says, “you’re _definitely_ not. Even the teachers think you’re touched in the head.”

He expects Richie to argue, or maybe list five reasons off the top of his head how Eddie’s a bigger weirdo than him. He doesn’t expect him to agree. “You got me there, Eds. You got me there.”

 _Something’s off about you,_ Eddie thinks. He’s sensed it for a while now without quite putting words to it, that Richie was being a little too loud in order to hide the fact he’s not actually saying much, but this is different. Maybe since Neibolt House, their first go-around, when Richie was so helpless that his only means of protection had been to distract him until they were swallowed whole by a monster. Sweaty hands on his face and neck while he was panicking and crooked-boned, both close to tears and soaked through their shirts in fear, “Look at me, Eddie, just look at me, it’ll be okay” but no it wouldn’t have been, because Richie put himself in the middle and that thing was going to eat him first-

 _What’s on your mind?_ He wonders these kinds of things often now. _We’re grown up enough, you can tell me what’s wrong…_

He pokes his fingers down inside his cast, trying to reach an itch. Richie leans over the veranda steps and reaches between the rungs of the banister, fishing around under his mom’s hydrangeas and plucking out a thin dry twig. He snaps off the sharp bits and hands it over. Eddie, knowing well enough that he shouldn’t, feeds it down inside his cast and scratches with it anyway, trying not to think too hard about whether it’s contaminated and will end him up with oozing lesions instead. Probably not, so why worry?

Richie’s cheek mushes against the palm of a hand as he leans on it, distorting half his face and offsetting his glasses. Eddie prods his bothered skin with a stick, relieved and disgusted, still so fucking itchy. Mindless of Eddie’s mom eavesdropping, Richie asks “Do you think we’ll ever leave, or you think we’re gonna get stuck here like all the other sad fucks who say they’re gonna get out but never do?”

“I thought you said you can’t wait to leave?”

“Yeah? Doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen. Not everybody gets what they want.”

Oh, Eddie’s familiar with not getting what he wants. Every damn day, especially this Summer past, it’s been all about what other people want. His mom, Bill and the guys, Beverly Marsh. He hadn’t thought much about where Richie fit in the equation, but his best friend is talking like he knows all too well just how fate and fairness barely give a shit about them.

Maybe it wasn’t Neibolt House that did it. Maybe it was in the interim when Eddie was a prisoner of his mother’s overprotective hell, shuffling from his bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom and back like an obedient ghost caught in a loop. What did Richie do with himself without Eddie around to torment, without Bill to lead him into trouble and Stan to fish him back out again?

“You’re being weird,” Eddie tells him as he uses his elbow like a cattle prod in Richie’s side, meaning it in more ways than just the one.

Richie jumps but his smile twitches into something real for a second when Eddie touches him, so he does it again, using an embarrassing amount of strength just to make the other boy sway like he’s about to slip and fall. Richie catches the step and rights himself, brushing his hands together to clear off the speckled dirt. He doesn’t shove back.

“I’m just thinking, Eds.”

“Well, stop it.”

Eddie doesn’t let himself think too hard about what he wants to happen when he’s grown up, but when it crosses his mind in moments like this, or when Richie boasts about leaving like there’s absolutely nothing redeemable about Derry, nothing (no one) worth hanging onto, he wonders. Maybe in a few years he’ll tell Richie he wants to come with. Maybe Richie will ask him to. They could leave together, live a bigger life out there than they’d ever patch together here…

Behind their heads the dining room curtain flutters. He’s still aware of the heat of her stare at the base of his skull, bracing him like stockades to this very house. Shackling him to her until he’s lived out his sentence of being her son. He feels that heat even when he’s far away from her, omniscient eyes of the mother always waiting for him to screw up somehow.

It’s a nice fantasy, running away, but it’s one Richie will be living out on his own. Eddie doesn’t have the privilege.

**R.**

_Intro II._

It’s a Saturday, maybe an hour until noon, and they’re having a picnic at the park. Although they crave the sun and the grass and the feeling of hours slipping through their fingers, none of them are quite ready to go back to their hidey-hole in the Barrens, and none of them feel like going swimming now that the first Autumn chill has swept over Maine. They figured they could have lunch at the park, somewhere they could try to kick a ball around without killing each other, something calm and outdoorsy enough to make up for what a mess their Summer was.

The Uris family’s scratchy picnic blanket, eye-sore orange and green, is mostly taken up by Richie’s own stupid gazelle legs. They’re sprawled out in front of him where they ache right down to the marrow with growing pains, too angular and speckled with bruises that never seem to fade. Mike perches on a single corner of what remains while Ben squeezes next to Richie.

Eddie, rather than tell Richie to move his selfish legs, stands in front of poor Ben with his hands on his hips. It’s slightly awkward with his cast but he manages it with a practiced impatience, an effect learned from dealing with a co-dependant mother’s frequent tantrums. “Move it,” Eddie unselfconsciously demands.

“I was here first,” Ben points out, looking like he meant it for all of half a second until he sees what Richie sees: the slightest of changes in Eddie’s face, that little tick of crazy that’s completely involuntary. Ben pushes himself up with a slight struggle and vacates the spot at Richie’s side, leaving it open for Eddie who falls into it without looking even the slightest bit guilty.

Richie gets it.

With three new friends it feels like their whole dynamic shifted. It’s been clear Bill’s crush on Beverly meant he’d usually listen to her over any of them. Bill was always their defacto leader even when it was just the four of them, but with Beverly swooping in it was clear _some of them_ have more of a say than others. Used to be, when it was just the four of them, Richie found himself clinging to the final link of the food chain without even noticing. Then four became five became six became seven. Richie, whether it was because he was the most annoying or the least mature, was told again and again to stay put and shut up and keep watch. Bill hesitates to tell him to do anything these days, rarely warns him to shut his mouth, actually listens to Richie when he has an idea or a suggestion. Bill asks him for his opinion now, which isn’t something he used to do, used to be confident Richie would voice it whether they wanted to hear it or not. A month or so in now, still trying to figure out their new hierarchy, and Eddie’d spent an afternoon or three bitching about not letting himself end up at the bottom of the pecking order under _Ben fucking Hanscom_. Richie loves the new kid, he really does, but a bit more spine out of him would go a long way and if there’s one thing Eddie has in abundance – when his mother isn’t around to see it – it’s a damn sturdy spine.

Richie chucks an arm over Eddie’s shoulder, grinning down at him as he pulls the other boy against his chest. “That was mean, Eds,” he teases. “Next time you can just sit on my lap. Don’t need to push Benny boy out of the way to get to me.”

“Fuck you, dude,” he returns, trying and failing to push away and get some space – probably because he’d kind of half sat down on top of Richie anyway. “Get off’a me.”

“But you’re cute, I wanna squeeze you,” Richie says like that’s a good enough reason to justify combing Eddie’s hair backward, trying to get it to stick up all over the place.

“Cut it out! God, you’re annoying!”

“Why’d you sit next to me then if I’m so annoying?”

“I didn’t want to sit on the grass. I don’t know what’s peed on it.” He says this, but then he slouches to the side and settles his casted arm in Richie’s lap, heavy and immobile, dead weight. Richie starts to mindlessly pick at it, the rough texture of the plaster calling to his nails to be scratched down smooth. Eddie takes it the wrong way and shoves his shoulder back into Richie’s, leaving his arm right where it lies. “Don’t. Don’t annoy me right now, okay? I’m tired.”

“You alright?” Mike asks, watching them curiously. Aware of this, Richie forces himself not to fiddle with Eddie’s cast – the closest he might get to playing with Eddie’s idle fingers – and starts running his thumb over a crease in the picnic blanket instead.

“I didn’t sleep so good last night.”

“Sorry, did your mom and I keep you up again?” The joke regurgitates out of him without conscious thought.

As does Eddie’s reply. “Not funny, Richie.”

Across the park, a yellow kite is stuck in a sycamore tree, ribbon tails wrapped around a branch. Bill and Beverly have gone over to help the younger kids who lost it, fruitlessly jumping to try and reach with the very tips of their fingers. Richie snorts without even meaning to and Eddie pushes at him again. Mike’s watching the kite fiasco as well, Ben’s somewhere out of sight, but Eddie’s looking at Richie, and so is Stan who comes and gingerly kneels on what little space is left of the picnic blanket. Richie moves his feet to give Stan more room and tips his chin toward the pair of losers they call friends.

“Let’s see how long it takes.”

Within a minute Richie’s already starting to laugh, which isn’t really fair of him. Bill looks distressed by how upset the young kids are becoming about their stupid kite. He’s kind of aware that Bill is relating this kid and a lost toy and crying and helplessness with what happened to Georgie. He’s not quite at a place yet with Bill where he wants to go out of his way to help him, even if that’s the nice thing to do, even if he should.

“Oh, like you could do any better,” Eddie challenges him.

“There’s a branch right by Bev’s feet, brainiac. They could just knock it down.”

About four minutes later Beverly trips backward over the branch and that’s when she picks it up. She pokes the kite until it flutters loose and falls.

It’d be nice if all problems in life were like that, if it wasn’t impossible to find solutions even when things seemed out of reach. The best things in life were too high up, the ripest fruit on the tallest branch; most people were content with picking up whatever fell readily to the earth, sometimes tasty sometimes tart, sometimes already turning or made hollow by the worms.

Upon Bev and Bill’s triumphant return Richie crows, “You guys were gone for so long you nearly missed Eddie’s balls dropping!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie snaps, swinging his good hand around to slap toward Richie’s face. He misses and doesn’t try again.

“Like you could do any better, Trashmouth,” Beverly retorts, not quite defensive, more like she genuinely believes it. “You would’ve been there all night.”

Neither Eddie nor Mike nor Stan say otherwise, so Richie offers a bland smile and doesn’t disagree. He even tells her “Touché,” and maybe he truly means that.

Richie _is_ farsighted after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first IT story, and technically it was written for the Reddie Big Bang on Tumblr. I'm not sure if it'll be finished posting in time for the deadline, I've had a hard time finishing writing it, and my artist suggested posting the first few chapters to see if it'll help me feel a bit more motivated. (I can't wait for her art to be published so I can link it here, she's so wonderful and talented and has been so helpful these past few months!)
> 
> Anyway, about this story: so there are a couple of darker themes that I'll try and warn about in the notes before each chapter where they occur. As a preface, just assume that any warnings relevant to the movies also apply here. I've made some narrative choices I'm nervous about, but I'm happy to explain these to anyone who asks. 
> 
> Working on this story has been a journey and I hope you enjoy reading it~ <3


	2. September, 89. | Evergreen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: underage drinking, and also Sonia.

**E.**

_September, 89._

Freshly-filled rainbow-colored pillboxes sit in a stack on the dining table among other things: unopened gas and phone bills, dog-eared Avon brochures, and a pile of washed crochet doilies set out for ironing. He spots the corner of a torn envelope peeking out from under the lacey folds. EDDIE the envelope reads when he turns it over while his mother is distracted in the kitchen, a little crown drawn above his blocky name. The birthday card inside is from his aunt Dorothy, his father’s sister – Eddie doesn’t know if she was the older or younger sibling, he doesn’t know if he looks like her, doesn’t know anything about her other than that she’s still alive, which is... more than he knows about most of his dad's side of the family. His ‘asthma’ starts to play up again when he reads the sloping passage:

_Happy Birthday Little Eddie!_

_~~I hope you know~~ _ _I wish I could’ve been there to see your face,  
_ _I bet you’re so big now! Tall as a weed, like your dad!  
_ _I could’ve sworn you fit in the palm of my hand once upon a time.  
_ _~~If you need~~ _ _If you ever want to write or come for a visit,_  
 _Well… You know what to do.  
_ _Don’t spend your birthday money all at once!_

_Love, Aunt Dot xx_

There's no money in the card, so maybe his aunt assumed he got some from someone else. He did, but it was just a half-dozen pennies out of Mike’s back pocket, stuck with lint and sweaty from his pale palm as he tipped them into Eddie’s cupped hands. He’d soaked them in white vinegar when he got home, in a little cup on the window sill in the kitchen. The cup was empty the next morning, his mom spent them buying bread and brown sugar and raisins. “Oh, Eddiebear, I didn’t know they were a gift. I thought you found them,” she’d explained, and Eddie, who’d slept on his cast that night and was feeling sore and unrested, let it go.

Now he’s supposed to meet with Stan and Richie and he doesn’t have the guts to ask for money. She'll ask what for, and he'll say it's for ice cream, and she'll say no, so why bother? But that isn’t the reason he's going, no, he can live without. What really matters is getting the hell out of this house and away from her for a few hours so he can hear himself think in more than just a whisper.

He considers the pillbox his mom meant for him to take today, every compartment full to the top (Richie once listed them like a nursery rhyme: white ones, red ones, white-and-red when I’m blue. Pink ones and yellow ones, white-and-green ones too) except they’re bullshit and he might actually get away with not taking them with him. He thinks _if I just leave now she can’t make me._

She’s waiting right behind him when he checks over his shoulder, her empty look one that fills him with dread every time. He nearly jumps out of his own skin when he sees her there, and drops his hand low by his leg to hide the birthday card. It’s overdue by nearly two weeks, from an aunt he doesn’t know and who clearly doesn’t know him, but it belongs to him all the same. It’s no use pretending. He's a terrible actor and she sees, she always sees. Her face, ruddy with rosacea and her daily five minutes in the yard under the morning sun, flushes even redder, growing up from her neck like a rash.

“What are you doing, Eddie?”

“Nothing.”

When she holds out her hand he flinches. He doesn’t know why he does that sometimes, she’s never hit him before and he doesn’t think she ever would. Even if she did it’s not like he hasn’t had worse done to him. He hasn’t misbehaved, not this time, yet he feels so much guilt chewing up his insides when he lifts up the card. The shiny blue 13 on the front stares blatantly back at him as his mother says “you know not to take things that don’t belong to you. I raised you better than that.”

Still… still, it’s easier to just give her the card and apologize. He makes sure the 13 stares up at her when he hands it over, just so she knows he knows she’s full of shit. (And he knows she knows he isn’t going to say a damn word about it).

“I’m sorry, mommy.”

He can’t quite look her in the eye anymore, not unless she begs him to.

She seems to finally notice he’s got his shoes on, fannypack clipped about his waist, hair laying flatter than it was when he woke up. He’s about to go, and she’s immediately unhappy with him. It’s so typical of her it almost brings him to laughter. “Eddie, we’ve talked about this. You can’t just go running off without telling me where you’re going, who you’re with, how long you’ll be-”

Maybe he’d tell her if she didn’t have a cow if he even so much as looked toward the front door. “ _Friends_ , mom. I’m going out _with my friends_.”

“Not that filthy Marsh girl, I hope.”

“No, mom. Just Stan and Richie.”

“You weren’t going to tell me where you were going? Do you know how worried you make me, Eddie?”

“I’m just going to hang out with the guys for a couple of hours.”

“Eddie-”

“Mom.” She puts the card face-down on the table, freeing her hands to pop open the blue pillbox he knows he’s meant to take today and fishes one out. Orange, the color of cheddar cheese, the ones he’s only been taking for a week. She holds it out for him, waving her hand in front of his face until he pinches it out of her palm. He follows her into the kitchen while something nervous and spoiling bubbles inside. She fills up an amber glass with water from the faucet. “Mom, _please._ ”

“Eddie, enough.”

“They make me sick. You _know_ they do. I get nauseous and-and I throw up, I feel dizzy,” he takes a gulp of air, telling his lungs to relax and do their job and let him fucking breathe. His voice is wobbly and high, in lack of any kind of strength when he informs her yet again, for the hundredth time this month alone, “I don’t _want to_.”

“Take it, Eddie.” All this objection doesn’t matter much if he still chokes down the flat, round tablet. It couldn’t be any larger than the other ones but it feels as thick and heavy as a pebble. The water washes it down where it sticks to his unwilling throat. “Good boy. It’s just until you get better, I promise.”

_Get better from what?_

He feels lightheaded and woozy for most of the day. The guys notice how he can’t keep his eyelids from dragging, they have to keep calling his name to get his attention. Richie’s wisecracks hardly get a reaction out of him. “Geeze, Eds, maybe you shouldn’t spend all night listening at your mom’s door when I’m over, huh?” Eddie musters the strength to shrug Richie’s hand off his shoulder but that’s about it. Richie either feels bad about it or already knows he’s broke since he buys Eddie’s ice-cream without being asked.

He's barely back to his usual self when the alarm on his wrist says it’s time – _beep-beep Eddie_ – so he scours his fanny pack for his pills while Richie watches and Stan pretends not to. He takes them all, even the nasty little orange one he's sorely tempted to spit into the dirt. Within the hour he’s unsteady again, headspins and kneecaps with the strength of jello cups. He doesn’t even remember if he asks them to take him home or if they decided between themselves, but he fits back into his body when they’re already at the end of his road, each of his friends wheeling their bikes along like chaperones either side of him while Eddie guides himself forward on heavy feet. The soles of his shoes keep catching gravel and potholes in the road, every few steps a jerky forward motion - in his head, he hears either his mom or his grandma telling him to pick up his feet.

Stan takes Eddie’s bike and lays it down on the front lawn for him, gently, not just tossing it aside as even Eddie would've. “You’ll be alright,” he tells Eddie. Richie doesn’t assure him of anything. Instead, his eyes latch onto Sonia by the front door with a wariness that’s unusual even for him, the boy who couldn’t hate Eddie’s mother more. He stands back and he watches and he doesn’t say a word. “Feel better soon, Eddie,” Stan says, “Bye Mrs K.”

Eddie, needing the comfort, wraps his arms around his mom in front of his friends while the door closes between them. Richie looks at him with eyes bubbled like a goldfish's through his bigass glasses, looks between Eddie and his mom like he’s learned something new.

It’s terrifying sometimes, how much Richie sees.

**R.**

| Evergreen. |

Eddie is allergic to pine needles according to Mrs K, so they’ve never had a real tree. Theirs is a plastic and wire thing that scratches you with malformed claws of matte green tinsel. It doesn’t make their house smell like Christmas, and it looks equally as dead when they put it up on the first as it does when they pull it apart on the thirty-first (because that’s what Eddie’s father used to insist on). It’s the same thing every year, and _tick_ goes the quartz clock house. She doesn’t even let Eddie put a star or an angel on top because that was a job for the man of the house, so the highest point is always crooked and lonely without a topper. He imagines her reply when Eddie asks is to say “maybe when you’re older”; she’d pat her hopeful son on the head, her voice light and floating away with the lie while she reminisces over the father barely known. Eddie would only ask once, resigned to wait until the next year.

For three years Richie has taken Stan with him and his family to help pick out their tree. For three years he’s offered Eddie to come along, and every year he’s been turned down. “I don’t want to get hives,” Eddie tells them, annoyed they keep asking the same question.

“You play in the woods every other day,” Stan points out for the fourth December in a row.

“Right,” Richie says, “like you haven’t been pulling pine needles out of your crack like the rest of us for how many years now?”

“That’s different,” Eddie says, and when pressed, can’t tell them _how_ exactly.

No matter. Even if Eddie doesn’t come, even if he’s allergic to everything, he’ll wind up at the Tozier household more afternoons than ever. His dorky mittens curled around steaming hot cocoa he keeps breathing in, his wind-chafed face lit up with dull rainbows from the Christmas lights he can’t stop looking at. Night falls well before six and his dad or sister will drive Eddie home after dinner so they don’t need to fend off neurotic calls from Sonia for sending him out alone. A few days later he’ll be back again, poking fun at the tacky creche on their mantle, a diorama Richie made in fourth grade with a shoebox and plastic animals and cut-outs from sparkly Christmas cards.

Even if Eddie doesn’t come Richie will still get to enjoy some parts of the holiday with him. For Stan it’s different, he tends to avoid going over his friends’ houses too much especially over Hanukkah. The answer when asked was something vague about being too young to understand once upon a time, and what Richie gets out of that is Stan learned the hard way not to pester his parents over Jewy things and now he’s overly cautious. So, every year Stan comes with them to help pick out a tree, he’ll make kosher sugar cookies with Bill ~~and Georgie~~ , if he does something with Eddie too then Richie’s never heard about it, and then they won’t see much of one another until the New Year.

It’s hard to tell if Eddie’s mad he doesn’t get to come or if he’s mad that Stan does. He turns his back in a huff when Stan moves on from Eddie’s rejection to ask Richie when they’re going. It’s something he’s noticed they do lately, tugging for his attention even when they both act like they couldn’t want it less. He’d be worried they’re fighting, for real or in the way he and Bill are still kind of fighting even though they’re not, but-

 _– Stanley! – No! – Stanley, no! – You left me! – No, we didn’t know – You took me into Neibolt! – Stanley no! No, no – You’re not my friends, you made me go into Neibolt! – Stanley I’m sorry_ –

Things have been different since Summer. Bill spends most of his time with Bev and Mike now, and with everyone that isn’t Richie the rest of the time they aren’t all together (which is probably Richie’s fault if he’s honest). Eddie went on a new medication some months ago, a real one this time. It slows him down, all the way down. He says things sometimes that he might mean to be funny but nobody knows if they're allowed to laugh, other times he just phases out and says nothing at all. Stan is jumpier than he used to be, and quieter, and sometimes he’ll pick at the scars on his face with his focus lost on some point past Richie like he doesn’t even see him there. Bev stares at him sometimes, and when caught she always asks him if he’s okay, and sometimes she sits right beside him, pressed to his hip like she’s trying to comfort him even when he says he’s fine.

Things are different now, but they love each other more than ever. It feels weird to even think it never mind saying it out loud; he can’t quite manage it, not even in the privacy of his room, so he’ll probably never say it to their faces. He doesn’t think friends are supposed to love each other this much, not to the point of terror that grips them when someone’s late or when a phone call rings out unanswered. It’s too much, the wrong shape nested inside him, taking up too much space that’s meant to be left for other things. Friends are supposed to be fun, they’re supposed to distract you when you need something else to think about, they’re not supposed to take root like this, not grow into something you obsess over. Maybe they’ll be able to loosen their grip on each other eventually, but for now Richie wants to keep them near. Just in case.

The tree they pick this year looks about the same as all the rest, a shorter trunk and fuller foliage perhaps, but otherwise it just looks like a big fucking tree against their living room window. This year is the first time Stan stays the night and helps them decorate. He seems to have fun even if his shoulders are too high up whenever Richie’s mom turns the camcorder on him. She catches on tape the stern Uris-esque concentration that goes into untangling Christmas lights, and later the moment Stan commits to wiping his glitter-covered hands all over Richie’s face in a rare moment of dickery. Richie, sparkles catching on his lips and cheeks and in his hair for the remainder of their home video, bickers with Stan and his sister and, privately, mourns the empty place setting at their dining table that night that could’ve been Eddie’s if he'd wanted it.

The first December night Eddie visits him this year, their kitchen is thick with the licorice aroma of tarragon and the syncopated humming of his parents cooking together. Richie’s parents aren’t overly involved but they are around most of the time. They always make a point of coming together with the kids at Christmas for a month where he’s never felt so paid attention to, and which leaves a funny taste in his mouth the rest of the year. The night Stanley stayed over they all pressed sharp black cloves into the rinds of oranges and hung them from the mantle and the ends of their curtain rods. When Eddie shows up in the afternoon he follows his nose until he finds them, twirling them on the ribbons and watching them spin, cloves blurring in motion into staggered stripes.

Last year his sister spiked her eggnog with Kahlua and swapped her mug with Richie’s when their parents weren’t looking, but they’re not fools and they knew what happened when their backs were turned, probably because Richie _is_ a fool and didn’t pretend too hard. This year, even with Eddie sipping his hot cocoa at the other end of the couch, his sister doesn’t bother hiding it from their parents nor Eddie, pulling Richie’s mug away from him and splashing a nip of Baileys into it before she pours herself a glass. It tastes like shit but he drinks it anyway, as well as whatever fermented thing's in his glass while they eat together. His face still feels flushed with it when his dad takes him and Eddie on a run to the grocery store after dinner, he can’t even walk without feeling like his feet are on backward, but mostly he’s just giggly and hovering at his dad’s heels until he steps on them one too many times. Eddie grabs his arm and eventually his hand, pulling him back to give his dad some space, telling him to calm down when he starts picking things up off the shelves and trying to make Eddie laugh with his crappy puns. If any of the other shoppers notice something amiss with Richie or the two boys holding onto each other they don’t make a scene about it.

“Hey, Rich." His dad is tanking up the car, and for the moment he and Eddie are left alone in the back seat, shroud in darkness and patches of vibrant lights from the luminous gas station. Richie's head swims with the rich petroleum wafting through the vents. " _Richie_."

“What's rockin', Sugartits?"

“You have problems.” Eddie tells him, a harsh whisper to accompany the wary glance cast out the window at his dad's back. Richie hums and reaches across to unbuckle Eddie's seatbelt. Eddie smacks his hand and latches himself back in.

"We're not moving, nerd."

"You can still get in a car accident, Einstein. If someone hits us, you're the one sailing into the front seat, not me." He gives it a moment before trying it again, but Eddie catches his hand and squeezes hard. It hurts, but Richie won't ever give him the satisfaction of knowing that. "Cut it out. I mean it."

"Fine, then stop holding my hand."

Eddie flings his hand away and folds himself up into his corner of the backseat. He's still too fucking small for his age, he barely takes up any space at all. Richie doesn't always notice it, but Winter especially makes it obvious that Eddie's the runt of their strange litter. All his layers make him look tiny, and he hates the cold so he's always curling up like a pillbug, tucking his nose into his scarf and his fingers up his sleeves.

Outside, his dad yanks the nozzle free and closes the cap on the fuel tank. Eddie stretches his leg and knocks his shoe against Richie's in the unseen depths of the footwell.

"What's it like?" Eddie asks.

"What's what like?"

"Just, all of it. Everything."

He can't comprehend what Eddie's on about, head all swimmy and focussed on the touch of their feet together.

"You're drunk."

"Am not."

"What's it like?"

"Uh, I feel kinda hot, and like, everything's really heavy and really light at the same time. My brain just wants to float away."

"It won't be missed, that's for sure."

"You're just jealous 'cause I'm getting away with it."

"You're not getting away with shit. Your parents know you're trashed, they literally saw it happening."

"Jealous, you're jealous!" He sings, swaying far over the middle seat until he manages to knock into Eddie with his head.

"What's wrong with you," Eddie says and shoves him off. He keeps his arm rigid between them, a hand on Richie's shoulder to fend him off. "God, you're fucking annoying!"

“Oh, I annoy you?”

“Yes!”

"Well, you can just _not_ come over, dude. Nobody’s making you put up with me."

Silence. Then, "I like your house," Eddie says. "I like your parents and your sister." He stops pushing Richie away but Richie doesn't move closer just yet. "I hate _you_ though. You suck."

Richie snorts. "If I knew you were gonna be such a bitch about it I would've shared."

Eddie's secret smile and the way he tries to hide it says it all. A swatch of green light from outside shines on half of his face, glowing in his eyes and the glint of teeth pinching his chapped bottom lip. There’s nothing unusual about the vision in front of him, nothing rare about Eddie’s softer edges, but the urge to say something irreversible climbs up the well of his throat, the urge to touch crawling like a pale-faced demon. Impulsive, Richie leans over quick as the liquor lets him be and unbuckles Eddie’s seatbelt again. Eddie immediately puts his feet up on the middle seat and pushes his heels into Richie’s hip and thigh, scooting him further away and into the opposite door, telling him to fuck off at a volume that was definitely heard by Richie’s dad who reappears at the driver’s side of the car. 

“Let’s get you home, ey son?”

Eddie barely looks back when they drop him off at the curb. He thanks Richie’s dad for the ride with well-worn politeness and tells Richie they’ll see one another, and then he’s gone, his shape just a shadow until he’s huddled up under the porchlight waving them off. The Kaspbrak's front door jerks open and Mrs K's wraithlike hand breaches the icy night and drags her son into a house that - according to Richie anyway - rivals Neibolt for the anxiety it brings at a glance. He promises within his own mind that he’ll share whatever Eddie wants with him, whether that’s his spiked cocoa or his living room that smells like firewood and pine needles, and he’ll do it again and again, all year round, for as long as they're still friends.

Maybe it's the alcohol singing in his veins. Richie breathes on the window and draws a heart in the steam, and with his sleeve he wipes it away before anyone gets the chance to see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters were going to be longer, but I'm thinking I can post more frequently if I'm just doing between 1 and 3 scenes per chapter. I don't think I'll manage an update every day, but I'll do my best!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Nonpareil. | February, 90.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: implied neglect of an animal, referenced sexual harassment, references to horror elements, and Sonia.

**E.**

| Nonpareil. |

His mom likes to remind him of all the dangers of December in Maine. (Just like she likes to remind him of all the dangers in January, February, March, et cetera). She’ll look out the windows encrusted with ice and she’ll tut, “what dreadful weather. You can’t possibly be thinking about going out in that!”

 _Think it, live it, love it_ , he lies even as he tugs mittens over waterproof gloves, rubbing insulated palms together just to get back some sort of feeling. Truthfully he hates Winter and all its eight-hour days. Rain only stops to make way for snow, he has to crack clumps of ice off of everything, and he always slips on the sidewalk in front of all his friends. Richie’s taken to putting a solemn hand over his heart and singing “ _Nearer My God to Thee_ ” when it happens like he doesn’t do a bang-on imitation of a deer stranded on a frozen lake whenever he loses his balance, arms and legs pinwheeling all over the place. Eddie sometimes doesn’t mind being the shortest if it means Richie has farther to fall and looks twice as ridiculous doing so.

His mom pencils in and erases her answers to yesterday’s Derry Daily Telegraph crossword with a surprising amount of commitment. She asks for a seven-letter word for an aquatic organism. He counts it on his fingers and suggests lobster, but she writes octopus instead, even though it overlaps wrong with her other answers. “Jerry aquaplaned coming back from Carmel the other night,” she says conversationally, “landed on his lid in a ditch by the roadside.”

 _Who the fuck is Jerry_ , he doesn't ask. She tells him anyway: Jerry was a pensioner, may or may not have had his headlights on come dusk, and his wife plays too much bingo and has rickets. (That explains why mom’s had him taking vitamin D supplements for two days now).

She’ll ramble for hours if he sits there and takes it. For the sixth time he hears about how irresponsible the Moores are for leaving their dog chained up outside and different phrases of “don’t they care its howling disrupts the neighbors’ sleep?” For the third time she muses about the one good thing about colder months, how it culls the homeless, then warns him not to go out too early just in case there are still frozen bums that need to be scraped off of benches because he doesn’t need to see that. For maybe the hundredth time in his life she remarks what a shame it is that his friend Stanley doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and how cruel his parents are for setting him apart from the other boys. She doesn’t say “good Christian boys” but he hears it, has heard it before, and presses his tongue between his teeth just in case she brings it around to that. That’s always been Eddie’s life, or so it feels, always biting his tongue to avoid disrespecting people infinitely more vile than him. It wouldn’t do to remind her they only go to church on Easter Sundays. He doesn’t think he believes in God, and he’s pretty sure she doesn’t either, otherwise she would’ve re-hung his grandmother’s cross when it fell off the wall two years ago. Jesus is just a faint shadow in their living room now, an outline of dust or a water stain in the wallpaper, his halo a hole in the stud where the nail came loose and fell, along with the crucifix, behind the TV unit that’s never been moved. She questions the Uris family’s faith regardless.

There she sits, worried about pneumonia and hypothermia and how he shouldn’t walk too close to the road in case a driver loses traction and mows him down. What she doesn't know is the very real danger of Eddie seeing what families that love each other are supposed to be like.

Bill's family used to be like that - _loving_. Georgie's been gone nearly a whole year yet Bill seems surprised when his dad deigns to greet him. Mr Denbrough comes home while he and Bill are sorting through VHS tapes in the living room and says hi to them. He seems pleasant but vacant like a fresh cut flower in a vase, not alive but not quite dead either. The moment between Bill and his dad is sweet with something rotten underneath. Eddie watches over his shoulder until Mr Denbrough disappears into the kitchen, and he asks quietly "Are they still-?"

"Shuh-sh-shut up."

Eddie isn't surprised. Bill's still a bit that way himself.

It occurs to him, when he holds out the case for _A Christmas Story_ and Bill takes it from him and shoves it back onto the shelves, the Denbroughs don't even have a tree up yet. There's none of the Hanscom or Tozier festivity here. Just the same big house that creaks and groans in the cold, and a kitchen that smells slightly sour with unwashed dishes. It might as well be mid-January already.

Bill's mom's home but Eddie hasn't seen her since he got here. His dad is muttering to himself, clashing dishes together and turning the faucet on and off and on and off. Bill keeps pulling out videotapes, inspecting their cases - pretending to, Eddie swears Bill's eyes don't even move - putting them back, uninterested. He carries on like his father isn't bashing dishware against the sink in a tantrum, like his mother isn't hiding upstairs so she doesn't have to look at them. The atmosphere in the house is funereal all this time later and Eddie is uncomfortable in a whole new way, different from how he usually feels out of place at other people's houses.

At Mike's he's never not aware of how Grandpa Hanlon's jaded eyes follow him around while he inspects everything, trying and failing to keep his hands in his pockets or jammed in his armpits so he doesn’t keep touching things. Everything in the farmhouse is the same humble country-style as his own, yet so clearly the proud fruits of generations of labor. Mike’s uncle is a carpenter and makes all their furniture by hand; Mike suggested once in front of Grandpa Hanlon that he should introduce his uncle to Ben, that maybe he could teach him some things, and was told: “I’m sure your friend’s parents would rather send their boy to a proper school for that.” Mike, knowing something they didn’t, pinched Ben when he took the deference as an invitation to insist his parents would be thrilled. Eddie’s been very careful never to ask for anything at Mike’s place since. Their food is different, their music is different, the art and portraits on the walls are different. It's not as black-and-white as Mike being black and Eddie being white, but it also kind of is, and maybe it's not them Grandpa Hanlon doesn't trust - maybe it's their parents, the world, time itself. He seems convinced Mike's new little white friends aren't going to stick around forever, but it's in that way where he phrases it like racism is something inevitable and they just don't understand yet because they're too young, they haven’t gotten to that part of their syllabus in the course of growing up. True they don't understand, but that's only because it doesn't make sense. 

Ben's family is sickeningly sweet, the complete opposite of Bill's. They seem, if anything, a little too excited about Ben having friends, always encouraging them to come over more often, starting conversations with benign details most adults don't bother remembering about the teenagers in their lives, lacking that otherwise universal inability to take younger people seriously. "Did you get into that art class you wanted?" Mrs Hanscom asked Bill once, more motherly than Mrs Denborough ever was even when Georgie was alive. It's freaky how nice Ben's parents are, always trying to feed them and talking to them like they're adults already, and it explains a lot about the new kid but not really. Leaving the Hanscoms’ home always had Eddie wondering, _what’s actually wrong with them? There’s gotta be something, right?_

Beverly, in direct contrast to Ben, doesn't let them come over really. It's never been clear if she's the one who doesn't want them there or if it's her foster mom’s doing. He didn’t see much from when she lived with her dad before the ‘break-in’ that landed him with too much brain damage to take care of her. Bev’s dad taking care of her is a concept that slithers around in his mind in a similar sinister way to certain memories of his mom taking care of him. Beverly doesn’t like when men touch her the way Eddie doesn’t particularly like when women touch him, and when he thinks about it too hard - “do you have pubes yet, Eddiebear” she’d asked, then yanked down the waistband of his sleep pants to check for herself, and god she’d been so _offended_ when he’d screamed - it makes him sick. _It’s different_ , he thinks, nothing like the way daddies hurt their little girls sometimes. _My mom loves me, that’s all._

At least Bev isn’t scared to go home anymore. So what if she doesn’t want them there? At least she’s safe.

Stan's house is strange but familiar. He's used to Rabbi Uris' aloof nature. He's gotten plenty of practice pretending he can’t hear a thing if Stan's dad interrupts them just to chastise his son for something. It happens every time, without fail, like he wants to check in on them but doesn't know how to be gentle. He used to think the Rabbi was just a dick, and he definitely is, but there are moments when Stan's dad will just watch them from an open doorway and, if Stan is laughing and seems happy, leaves them be. He wonders sometimes what excuse Stan gave when he came home that day, perforated with tooth-marks and blood in his hair and mud all over. He wonders if the Urises believed him.

Of all his friends' families, he likes Richie's the most, even if they're messed up in their own little ways. It'd be too easy to assume Richie just got lucky.

Wentworth and Maggie Tozier are good parents, but they aren't great parents. He's seen it before: Richie will boast about an A grade or perfect test score, and his mom will mildly congratulate him. "That's nice, honey" she'll say, and that's that. Oh you're doing well in school? Moving on. Where Stan's parents were so hard on him it was difficult to earn praise, it was almost as though Richie's parents were so easy on him they had no expectations, nothing he did could let them down and nothing would make them proud either. And boy did Richie ever try to make his parents proud, wound up deflated like a punctured balloon animal every time, stretched a little thinner after every failure to get their attention. Eddie's heart cracked a little for him, but he'd never found a way to say or do anything to make it better. Bill always knew what to say to get Richie out of those moods, the dull slump that followed disappointment. Sometimes the person who knew Richie best was Bill, which is why their weird _thing_ right now where they don't really talk is so bizarre. Eddie has the misfortune of being a jealous person; it's not a nice feeling, being kind of happy their friendship is fractured. He feels gross, and selfish, wanting both Bill and Richie for himself and not wanting to share them with each other. 

Mr Denbrough reappears from the kitchen while he and Bill are half-heartedly agreeing with each other on re-watching The Naked Gun. His arms are speckled with soap suds right up to his elbows, a sopping dishtowel slung over his shoulder. Eddie can see how thin his patience is even as he asks Eddie if he wants to stay for dinner, they’re going to order in. Behind him, the kitchen window is black as pitch, night already truly fallen and Eddie hadn’t even noticed.

Bill’s face is open and pleading with him to stay, but Eddie just… he can’t. He can’t sit there at their table, in Georgie’s seat, Mr Denbrough testy from a day of work and coming home to undone chores, Mrs Denbrough taking few bites and not talking or even looking at Bill when he asks her a question, and Bill… poor fucking Bill.

“That’s okay, Mr D, I think my mom wants me home soon. I better get going.”

“You need a ride?”

“I’m okay, thanks.”

Bill stutters through his disappointment to tell Eddie to stay safe and they’ll catch up again soon, and sees him off at the door. As soon as Eddie knows he’s safe he hurries down the street in the wrong direction, slipping and staggering his way to Richie’s house. It’s not far but Eddie’s already overcome with a violent shiver by the time he’s knocking on the Tozier’s front door.

Maggie Tozier answers. She’s blonde and well-kept, she has a face that’s meant to be stern-looking except she’s always so lovely, and Richie looks nothing like her apart from the shape of his jaw and their dark hickory eyes. “Oh, Eddie! Richie’s up in his room, we’ll call you down for dinner soon.”

On the couch, Richie’s dad and sister are just… talking. He’s got a beer in hand, she’s threading chunky pony beads on a cord, and they’re talking. They’ve got a burning log, and their Christmas lights are glowing, something’s in the oven and Eddie can almost taste the seasoning suspended in the air. Richie’s mom goes to join them again, tucking a handmade afghan over her feet as she goes. And they keep talking.

And Richie, apart from them, hiding out upstairs alone.

He can’t say he doesn’t yearn for what they have because he does. He soaks in the Tozier’s atmosphere through his pores, trying to absorb some of their love secondhand. Richie’s parents laugh at something his sister says to them. Eddie doesn’t know if he’s ever made his mom laugh. He can’t recall ever thinking of his mom as being funny.

He wants what they have. Why wasn’t this an option for him?

The first thing Richie says to him when he barges into his room is “Jesus-fuck, what if I was busy, dude!”

“You’re literally just laying there.”

“That’s the best time to be busy, Eddie my love,” Richie cheerfully informs him, grabbing at the crotch of his pants. He shuffles across his bed to make room for Eddie to sit, kicking his magazines off the end and onto the floor where the pages ripple and fold.

“Your door’s unlocked, you wouldn’t dare!”

“It’s called stealth-”

“I don’t care what it’s called, lock your fucking door first!”

“Knock a little, why don’t you?”

“I did knock!” He didn’t. “And anyway, what if your mom sees!”

“She made it,” he says, flipping his hand back and forth in dismissal, “it’s her fault if she can’t see me past its shadow.”

Around and around they go. His ribs ache by the time he stops laughing, or rather by the time Richie shuts up and lets him stop laughing, but then they’re being summoned for dinner and Richie is still glowing with pride, and Eddie's sides are sore and he wants… this. Just this. 

Sometimes he wishes he didn’t know what it feels like to have a friend like Richie. It’s dangerous to feel so good about himself, so happy, and then at the end of it all, to pack up all his happiness in a treasure chest deep inside and walk through his own front door again.

  
  


**R.**

_February, 90_

Mike tosses the wooden bat up, catches the barrel in his hand, and thrusts it out grip-first for Richie to take. He grabs it without hesitating, antsy and ready to take his turn, confident he can hit the softball the farthest, but as soon as he rears it back he gets a flash – a vision of sorts – and for a second it’s as if Pennywise is on all fours in the snow, that wretched face appealing upward right where Mike’s knees should be. He remembers aiming for serrated teeth and yellow eyes and a jaw that’d unhinged to take a bite if only they’d hold still. He remembers hitting hard enough to break bones, hard enough to kill something.

His arm arcs back as if to swing all by itself ( _kill it, Richie!_ ) and with a spasm of fright his fingers spread and the bat goes sailing in the air behind him, thrown backward and away.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Eddie screeches behind him, dodging the bat flying in his direction even though it ought to have missed by a few yards.

Richie is shaking, staring at his hands, bright pink and almost numb from the cold, like they might be possessed. It was barely a second but he forgot he was in broad daylight, in the park pasted pure white with snow, playing with his friends in the slurry. Just one second and he was back in the sewers with friends he loves, a boy he loves more than a friend, and an unearthly predator collecting death.

His instinct had been to hit it again, same as last time, to kill it. He could’ve broken Mike’s fucking legs.

“What is _wrong with you_ ,” Eddie accuses. Richie flinches when Eddie’s mitt is lobbed at him and connects lightly with the back of his neck.

Beverly’s the one who moves as if to go to him, her own mitt pressed against her chest like a big leather pincer. Like the giant crab claws Pennywise scuttled around on and tried to stake them with, stitched together like the painted lips of his likeness lying maggot-ridden in the child-sized coffin. “Richie-” she begins, stepping like she wants to approach him. There’s ice on the tips of red poking out from under her beanie.

“Softball blows,” he snaps, backing away from her, from Mike, and anyone else he might try and hurt out of fear. Eddie follows him, toddling along through banked snow in his bright green parka that swishes as he tries to catch up, calling Richie’s name through his tightly-wound scarf.

He left a part of himself in that house, in Neibolt, in the Wellhouse. They all did. Little ugly pieces thrown about on the rotting wood like confetti, ripped from them in gleeful fistfuls by a manic monster with a clown red smile. One day other people will go into Neibolt, they’ll go through that house from attic to basement and they’ll weave in and out of rooms where Richie and his friends almost died. They’ll walk all over the things that were left behind that day, fragments of childhood innocence, scuff marks from Eddie’s shoes on the kitchen floor and the crumpled missing persons poster that lied. Richie’s ignorance was abandoned there, for that was the day he finally knew. He wonders if they’ll find his ignorance among the maggots, infested and decomposed just like the rest of that forsaken house.

Eddie follows him and forgives him, but Richie keeps shaking even when they're inside and out of the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long day, and I needed to post something or I was gonna be mad at myself in the morning.
> 
> Thankyou for reading!


	4. March, 90

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: referenced offscreen bullying/homophobia

**E.**

_March, 90._

Crouched over a puddle, Eddie swirls a stick in a circle around a drowned butterfly on the surface. Its wings are black and white and red all over, and Eddie can’t bring himself to feel sorry for it. He isn’t poking it because he knows it’s still alive no matter what Stan must think when he hops his way over along the slippery stones, watches for a couple of seconds, then shoves Eddie’s hand away and uses a broad leaf to net the butterfly out of the water. Eddie doesn’t feel much of anything when he sees what Stan must’ve seen, those desperate little legs dragging its waterlogged body to safety.

Still, he’d much rather be watching Stan nurse a butterfly back to life than participating in what Richie and Beverly are doing. They’re wading barefoot in icy creek water so thickened with algae bloom the evaporation rings on the stones are bright green. They’re both wearing long overalls they’ve rolled up to their calves, not that it’s done much good, splash marks all the way up to the tops of their thighs and on Bev’s backside from when she slipped and fell in. Twin curly hair made even wilder by sweat sticks up in all directions, bright red and rich brunette, a contrast of opposite but fair features. They’d make a nice picture in the dappled light, cycling between excitable smiles and stern concentration. If only one of them thought to bring a camera, Eddie would’ve liked to remember them this way: a pair of loud, charming fools.

“Oh, there! There’s one!”

“Shit! Where?”

“You missed it.”

“Damn. Where you hiding, you little bitch?”

The last time Eddie touched a tadpole he was eleven years old, and that was only because Richie stuck one between his toes. The wriggling disturbed him so deeply. Just looking at anything that moves like that, worms or caterpillars or maggots, it makes him feel physically sick.

Stan lays the butterfly out on a dry rock after checking it isn’t too hot from the sun. Everything about it seems weak, from the limp drape of its wings on the rock to the twitch of its legs. Stan disappears for a moment, pacing the line of the creek bank and pulling himself up between two trees. When he comes back, a small bunch of orange and yellow hawkweeds bloom from his fist. His knees are dirty and there’s a web caught in his curls, but Eddie isn’t going to say anything about that or remind him about poison ivy. Stan hops across the stones back to Eddie and the butterfly set out to dry, then breaks off a head of one of the orange flowers and nudges it close to the forlorn insect, watching closely to see if its proboscis uncoils.

“That’s going to ta-ta-take all day,” he overhears Bill tell the others. Bill’s not helping Richie either. Instead, he carries around a bucket full of rocks, scooping up whatever might be of even the slightest interest to Ben whose own science project was about minerals. Richie never explained what exactly his project is supposed to be, but he was very specific that it included baby frogs. Eddie kind of hopes it’s about metamorphosis and not something more Mary Shelly inspired.

“Eddie, come help,” Richie calls out some minutes later, pushing his glasses back up the slope of his nose now that he’s not looking down. Mike’s just joined him and Beverly in the creek, but the manpower of three isn’t enough apparently.

“Have I ever told you about giardia?” Eddie calls back.

“That’s the one where I get infected and die, right?”

“No, it’s the one where you get infected and uncontrollably shit yourself.”

“Sounds like a fun time.”

“Fun? Crapping yourself sounds like fun to you? What about abdominal cramps, and dehydration, and-and severe weight loss ‘cause you can’t stop shitting?”

“Oh yeah, I read about that, actually,” Richie says, suddenly thoughtful. “It was in Cosmo, the ten best parasites for instant weight loss.” He illustrates a feminine-looking pose, chest out and spine arched and twisted as if he had breasts and maybe a slipped disc. His pitch lifts now that he has all of their attention, “ _giardia_ , the best solution for that _tight summer bod_ , right under _tapeworms_.”

Ben, sweet Ben who can never tell when Richie’s spinning a yarn, and who has an unbroken habit of asking innocent questions that only eggs him on more, asks, “Why were you reading Cosmopolitan?”

“Eddie’s mom keeps a bunch right by her bed. I had to do something to entertain myself while she caught her breath after round three.”

“My mom reads Ladies’ Home Journal,” Eddie snaps, tossing a small flat rock across the creek at Richie, who luckily ducks to avoid it. Eddie’s stomach drops with regret even as it sails overhead. “ _Asshole,_ ” he snaps and turns away from all his friends. After a while of just kinda pushing rocks back and forth, he grows bored again and shuffles around so he can see them all and just watch.

Bev is showing off something to Bill. Her hands are wet, and so is the stone she hands him to put in the bucket hanging off the crook of his elbow. Ben and Richie are eyeing them up, a little too obvious in the way that only friends can get away with being, although Ben’s disheartened look when Bev and Bill keep smiling at each other tells a vastly different story than Richie rolling his eyes.

“Wendy Darling, we’re not finished here,” Richie reminds her. The creek sloshes around his legs as he nears them, holding his hand out to help her down off the boulder she’s standing on and back into the water.

There’s no reason for the hot flash in his gut when Bev takes the hand and carefully inches back down into the creek. He couldn’t care less when it was Bill she was touching, mooning over from a distance, doubling up on his bike with her hands slipping curtly over his shoulders to hold on to something. He doesn’t even like Bev the way boys like girls. It’s got nothing to do with her.

But Richie leads her back over to where Mike is creeping around in the water, and he says something too quiet to overhear that causes her to smile at him, and Richie smiles back right when the sunlight streaking down through the canopy of trees hits him from above, and-

Stan whispers close to his ear, "Don't let the guys see you looking at Beverly like that."

"I wasn't looking at Bev." His brain catches up with his mouth and he bites the tip of his tongue, tastes salt. The core of his chest grows hot with embarrassment. It takes Stan a moment, but his brain catches up too and he’s given a funny look; Stan’s expression shifts several times like he can't decide whether or not to frown. “I just noticed Richie's kind of good-looking, isn't he?"

"Richie's a dweeb."

"Well yeah, obviously. I meant his face."

Satisfied that they're in agreement, Stan takes his eyes off Eddie and considers their friend instead, tilting his head the same angle Eddie had been and trying to see what he saw. It’s odd, but Eddie doesn’t like that he can tell the exact moment Stan notices that Richie’s kind of... pretty...ish... even with his stupid glasses and beaky nose and freckled round cheeks. Stan blinks a few times like he wants to take back the realization, like he would’ve been happier not noticing. Eddie doesn’t even blame him, he’d like a redo as well thanks. "Huh... I guess I can kind of see it. Those rumors had to come from somewhere."

And there goes the mood. Stan just killed it dead. 

"I don't want to talk about that,” he says.

"Maybe one of those ugly bastards has a crush on him? I do remember Hockstetter always having his tongue out like a dog."

"Stanley. _Don't_."

"Eds-"

"We don't talk about it. That's the rule. And don’t call me Eds, that’s the other rule, not that anybody remembers."

"I remember," Stan says simply, and goes back to poking around his butterfly, not game enough to touch it in case he hurts it. Then, deliberately ignoring Eddie’s plea, Stan posits a question in such a way he just knows it’s been bothering him for longer than this conversation. “You think he knows what people say about him?” He’s nervous, reluctant to open his mouth about it, trusting him with his concerns; Eddie doesn’t care.

“I don’t know, Stanley. Just shut up before he hears us.”

“Whatever, _Eds_.”

And that’s the end of that. Maybe it’s a door to some other conversation, but Eddie slams it shut and locks it and pretends it doesn’t exist. He won’t talk about Richie like that, behind his back like a coward, like a bully. He won’t be turned into someone who does that, no better than Connor Bowers coughing wounding words under his breath any time Richie passes by.

Too soon after Eddie shut Stan down, Ben appears behind them out of fucking nowhere just in time to see Stan usher his new pet onto the palm of his hand. The butterfly drunkenly staggers up to his wrist.

“What have you got there, Stanley?”

“It’s a red admiral,” Stan says, and very carefully extends his arm so Ben can see, keeping his hand perfectly balanced so as to not disturb the distressed insect steadily climbing back to his palm. It starts to beat its wings, all pepped up by this second chance at life. He stays crouched among the rocks while Stan and Ben wander off toward the treeline and the butterfly clings to Stan like he’s a Disney princess. He even has to force it to crawl onto a bush, nudging it the whole way.

Eddie ran from a panhandler once, when he was an eight-year-old in Portland visiting his grandmother. He saw it in the man’s eyes, the neediness, seeking someone innocent enough to get caught talking to him, someone he could dump all his life’s misfortunes on and pass it off as wisdom. Eddie caught the ethanol stench on his breath and, overtaken by fear at this grimy stranger taking hold of his wrist, pulled himself free and ran away. At that moment he didn’t care if the bum was just looking for a friend or some human contact that wasn’t kicking or spitting. Maybe he liked little boys in a totally harmless way, like maybe he wanted a kid of his own and life clearly had other plans for him. A better person than Eddie would’ve probably felt sorry for the man, might’ve even spared a few minutes of their time, but Eddie was only eight and repeating a mantra of ‘stranger danger’ under his breath, thinking about how slimy the man looked to a child who didn’t quite know any better how to describe what he was looking at.

Maybe all living things are no different. Show it a bit of kindness and it’ll come crawling back on hands and knees, looking for shelter, food, _love_. (That’s how parents do it, right? Love it just a little and it’s yours forever?) 

Stan, relieved of his burden, hovers like an overbearing parent – something they both know a little about – and Eddie unkindly thinks that maybe some people don’t mind being used like that. They must get something out of it.

Friendship was sort of like that, now that he’s thinking about it.

They patched Ben up and he never left. They saved Mike’s ass and he never left. They treated Bev like a human being and she never left. They, the original four, friends since before they knew to care about things like chronic stuttering or religion or allergies, back before they could tell some kids are just wired wrong and can’t calm down and pay attention. 

When he really thinks about it, they really are just a desperate bunch of losers, aren’t they?

The adhesion that keeps them together is more likely loneliness than loyalty, certainly not a piece of glass slit through the palm of their hands. No one wants to hang out with a loser except for another loser. Eddie firmly believes this.

Richie lets out a delighted sound and buckles, mindless of the rocks and his knees, dropping down into the water where he chases a mason jar around a submerged tree branch and starts to scoop it up. Algae clumps swirl like a tornado inside the glass, and among them, tossed around in the miniature current, five tadpoles of various sizes. Triumphant, he hands his jar of success to Beverly and waits with his hand out for an empty one.

Eddie sees Richie freeze as he’s uncapping the new jar, staring strangely into the water. _Oh no,_ he thinks, having seen this before.

Richie doesn’t move for several long seconds and Eddie figures he was mistaken, but then Richie shrieks. He drops the jar to clutch at his own head as he tips face-first into the shallow creek. It isn’t far to fall, but there are rocks, branches, maybe broken glass, all kinds of things lurking within the water stained brown with mud and tannins, danger hidden under a mat of algae thick as seaweed. Richie fell in but Mike and Beverly are there to pull him back out. _You can drown in an inch of water,_ Eddie recalls. He fights the first instinct to scramble for his inhaler and presses his own chest to keep his heart inside. 

Richie’s face is clean at first when Mike turns him on his back and hauls him up, but slowly blood starts to creep down in spidery veins. Richie looks spooked, his eyes huge and dark and blinking water away. Beverly slips but stays upright in the frantic search for Richie’s glasses, which she pulls out from between two rocks and checks for breakages. Eddie is there, wading through the creek shoes and all, snatching up Richie’s glasses to dry them quickly on his own shirt. He crouches down to slip them on Richie’s face and help Mike wipe some of the blood away.

“You’re okay, Richie,” he hears himself speaking, taking Richie’s cheeks in his hands. “It’s gone. It’s just us, okay?”

 _–_ _Eddie, look at me! Look at me!_ _–_

Richie, who’d been unresponsive and whose eyes stayed unfocused even with his glasses back in place, takes a sudden deep breath and grabs Eddie’s wrists. His mouth gapes open a couple of times but he doesn’t say anything, so Eddie just shushes him and quickly wipes off another trail of blood making its way down from the gash on Richie’s brow and cleans it off on the leg of his shorts.

“You’re okay, it’s okay.”

His palms are once again red with Richie’s blood but it’s not an oath this time. It’s not binding. He's not okay. None of them are.

Richie gets a sty so his left eye is pink and weepy for a week. The cuts on his face and the abrasion on his elbow don’t get infected, but he does get a bruise on his forehead the color and shape of a storm cloud that’s slow to fade, and accidentally knocks off the scab on his chin so it takes twice as long to heal. He doesn’t get giardia. He gets an A on his science project and never once acknowledges or explains why he fell into the creek. To Eddie's and everybody else's shame, nobody asks him to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one scene 'cause it's a longer one, and honestly it's one of my favourites 'cause it's kind of nostalgic. I hiked to a waterfall with my friends some years ago and I spent most of my day rescuing cicadas from drowning, and also my friend stuck a tadpole between my toes because she's that much of a shit and Richie would absolutely do that to Eddie.


	5. April, 90. | May, 90.

**R.**

_April, 90._

Somewhere between settling the Bowers estate and some antiquated duty known as “family comes first”, a new but known family moved into the homestead where Henry stuck his dad like a pig. Connor, _fucking Connor_ , who doesn’t look anywhere near as inbred as the last branch of the Bowers family tree but whose veins hold a river of malice that runs at least half as deep. Out in the property overrun by thistles, broken beer bottles, and three litters of feral kittens running amok, Connor and his parents festered for months in the whispers of small-town delusions and ammonia from all that cats’ piss.

His dad got caught up talking to Connor’s old man at the bakery by accident. Richie hovered behind him and stared at the patisserie display to keep his eyes from the rippling burn scars on the strange man’s hands. He was a fire commissioner down in Boston, so he explains, but the wife wanted to take up her late brother-in-law’s home and renovate the place. “I know folks don’t got many kind words ‘round here for ‘em, but they were family, and you know what they say: blood’s thicker’n water, an’ all.”

 _Blood of the coven,_ Richie had thought while driving his thumb into the scar lancing his palm, pressing until it pinched. Maybe if he dug in hard enough the others could feel it too?

Nonetheless, water of the womb held strong for the Bowers family, and with Henry contained by psych for maybe the rest of his sorry life, clearly _someone_ had to step into his hand-me-down shoes. Figures that someone was Connor.

Figures those shoes would be a better fit than Richie naively thought. Not quite right, a little too big for him, but close enough.

It isn’t until a mid-Spring morning that he’s dealt more than a choice word or a glob of spit on his shoe. Belch and Victor volley him between them until he trips and falls, not into the thorny rosebush like they might’ve hoped but onto the lawn beside it. His bike tossed aside, kicked out of the way. Richie winces at the audible scrape of aluminum against the pavement but reasons the frame was probably due for a repaint anyway.

 _It’s not so bad,_ he thinks later while he dabs the back of his hand to the underside of his dripping nose, streaks so thin they dried almost orange across his skin, glistens of new red while he patiently waits for Eddie to come to his front door.

Eddie, whose smile drops upon seeing him, swings the door closed just a little like he’d just changed his mind. “What the hell happened to _you?"_

“Oh, you know me, Eds. Just makin’ friends.”

Eddie looks him up and down, paying particular attention to what is probably a boot print on his shirt. “It’s starting again, isn’t it?” he asks, and his eyes flicker away, not out of shame but distraction - he listens behind himself a moment, then throws himself out the front door and closes it quickly. “Go, go,” he hisses, shoving at Richie, pushing him down the porch steps.

He doesn’t quite make it to the grass where his own bike is prone and waiting.

“Eddiebear, where are you going?”

“Out.” His tone is waspish, but Sonia’s insulted inhale is like a training whistle. Eddie’s shoulders tighten and he turns back to look at his mother’s slippered feet. If he had a tail it’d be between his legs, probably. “We’re just going out for a little bit.”

“Hi, Mrs K," Richie waves with his free hand, the other tucked under his nose again, pulling the collar of his shirt up with it. His shirt _was_ blue, but now... _eh..._

Sonia, rather than offer Richie some help or ask him if he’s okay, squints down at him like he’s a particularly juicy bug gone splat on the windshield. Like she’d try to wipe him off if only it wouldn’t make more of a mess. It doesn’t surprise him - this is the woman who looked at Ben with his belly all gashed open and didn’t falter for a second.

“Richard,” she acknowledges him, only to follow that with “getting into trouble again, I see.” He wishes he had some smart-aleck comment for her, or that there was something in his rolodex of knee-jerk spite, but he comes up empty. Something about the lack of emotion in her face freezes him up, one wrong move and she’ll snatch Eddie away in her jaws and never let them speak again. “Whatever you’re doing, my son will have no part of it.”

“He fell, Ma,” Eddie cuts in and pushes Richie further down the footpath. “We’re going now, love you, bye.”

“ _Eddie._ ” Eddie stops still, doesn’t take another step, hands fisted at his side as he waits. His mom disappears for a moment into the house, then comes back onto the porch and holds out the fannypack Richie hadn’t even noticed was missing from Eddie’s waist. She stands at the edge of the porch landing and holds it out. She makes Eddie come to her to take it, which he does, looking a lot younger than his thirteen years. Watching this shit unfold every time is excruciating.

From the perspective of a parent, especially a single mother, it must make some sense that Sonia is the way that she is. But Richie is not a parent, therefore he feels pretty damn confident that she’s being a massive bitch most of the time. The only way Sonia knew how to be a mother was to be in control. The only way she could raise Eddie was by ensuring he never grew up. Eddie isn’t entirely unaware of this, little flashes of hostility when she crosses some line she’s unaware he’s drawn. Mostly he stays cowed, and mostly Richie understands, but it always pisses him off to see it happen.

It pisses him off, and sometimes he takes it out on Eddie.

By the time they’re cruising down the street, Eddie must feel the way Richie’s looking at him, judgement like a physical thing bruising the back of his head. "Fuck off,” Eddie snaps, feinting as though he’s going to ram his bike into the side of Richie’s.

Richie pitches his voice high and whiny and says “Don't forget the antacids! Eddiebear needs those or he might get reflux from all those fatty foods and processed grains-” this time, Eddie takes his nearest foot off the peddle and kicks out at him. Richie swerves wide. “Oh Eddie teddy, time for beddy byes! Better drink all your NyQuil or you’ll be grounded until the end of the month, Mister!”

“You better shut the fuck up before I punch you, too.”

“What’s a man to do? I must just have one of those faces,” Richie mutters, back to his normal tone. Eddie grins, the tip of his tongue between his teeth to tease him, then suddenly picks up speed and cuts in front of Richie to turn down the wrong street. “Whoa, Eds-”

“We’re going to Bill’s, c’mon!”

Well hell, how much of his dignity does he have left to lose in front of Bill, anyway?

Bill opens the front door, still in his pajamas, and squints into the morning light and rears back from the sheer volume of Eddie’s voice. “Hey Bill, can we use your bathroom? Thanks.” Eddie pushes his way past Bill and drags Richie with him.

“Whuh-what ha-happened?” Bill stammers, so startled by Richie’s state, and Eddie's rudeness, that he follows them all the way up the stairs with that shell-shocked expression.

“Richie had a nosebleed. We won’t be long.”

It’s… honestly not what he expected, that Eddie would shut the door between them and Bill like that. Or that he would lie.

“Is that what we’re going with? Nosebleed?”

Eddie stalls. He's already thrown back the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet above the Denbrough’s vanity, sorting through it like he hasn’t sussed out its contents a thousand times and knows exactly where everything is. “Who did it?”

“Who do you think? Who it always is.”

Sure, it’s the first time Connor’s gotten physical, but it’s far from the first time Belch and Victor laid hands on him - on any of them. They weren’t the same brand of psycho Henry and Patrick were shaping into back then, but they were bad enough on their own, and just because they’ve largely left the Losers alone since Summer didn’t mean their presence wasn’t felt. Connor scares him in a new way altogether. Connor _knows_.

Eddie cleans him up in Bill’s bathroom, a process that takes entirely too long for how little can and needs to be done. When Richie’s no longer blemished with crumbly flakes of blood and feels ready to show his face, they find Bill already dressed, shoes and all. He invites himself along with them to Mike’s even before he knows that’s where they’re headed. He gives Richie a clean shirt and doesn’t call him or Eddie out for lying to him. Richie can be delicate about _some_ things, and so decides to take Bill’s initiative for what it is: amends.

When they make it to the Hanlon farm, Mike waves at them with his coveralls stained in red and yellow viscera, the trademark gag-worthy sights and smells of lambing season. In the barn behind him, the screaming of laboring ewes pierces the morning and also Richie's temples. He drops his bike and heads straight for Mike in all his gunky glory, not before he attempts to drag Eddie in the same direction by the belt of his fanny pack. “Don’t touch me,” Eddie snaps like a wily alley cat, hissing and spitting always. As soon as Richie lets him go, he turns around and barrels into Richie’s side anyway, throwing him off-course. 

For most of the day Eddie, Bill, and Mike are giddy with life, chasing nimble lambs up and down the pens. It’s all Richie can do to keep his eyes to himself and off of Eddie who's bright-eyed and alert for once, befriending a curious ewe with her sides ballooned with babies due any day, oh how delighted he is when the animal eats grains out of his hand. And to the east, a black and gray plume of smoke rises from the Bowers property where they’re burning piles of old carpet and furniture and secrets best left alone. Richie catches himself watching it several times throughout the day and wondering what could possibly be left that wasn’t worth being set on fire with the garbage. 

**E.**

_May, 90._

Nearly a whole year comes and goes, and Eddie is starting to accept that what happened to them is over, if it ever really happened in the first place.

His eyes trip over storm drains and lost shoes. Sometimes he stands out the front of Neibolt House and just stares at it, waiting for it to call his name, waiting for the leper to show its face so he can kick its ass. (He tells himself that’s what he’d do, but the reality is he’d run, run as fast as he can, vision tilted and dark when he cuts himself on the wire fence or skins his knees on the asphalt when he inevitably _falls_ ).

The flash of a red balloon in his peripheral is never actually a balloon but something else; a fancy new sports car that doesn’t belong, a dress fluttering high above the knees like a capital A; things that are trying too hard to be red.

And just like the clown was never a clown and a balloon is never really a balloon, best friends forever is never really for _forever_.

The Derry Daily Telegraph was a small organization of less than a dozen people, all of whom were crammed into a tiny bullpen above a second-hand furniture shop. Weak journalists with weaker morals and the combined integrity of a straw house, they milked any and all murders and disappearances to death. 

(The saying was that the number one suspect for all unexplained foul play worked in that office, always hungry for another quote, another headline. Nonsense, but on the darkest days rumors like that felt a little closer to fact than fiction). 

Grief drove Bill’s parents to their wit's end, but those bloodsucking tabloid wannabes didn’t help. They were just getting back to remembering they had two sons, that one was still alive, when the story broke: a teenage couple ‘canoodling’ in the Barrens pulled a yellow raincoat out of a storm drain with Georgie Denbrough’s name on it.

Bill left it in the sewers that day but it must’ve gotten washed through the pipes, and then two ‘canoodlers’ found it and unearthed even more pain. _Poor little Georgie never had a funeral_ , the paper lamented, _perhaps now his parents will finally be able to let him rest and give the people of Derry the chance for closure._

By the end of the week, Bill is sitting them all down in the clubhouse, telling them he has some bad news to share. Eddie is not okay with this. The thought of _more_ bad news makes his skin crawl like he’s covered in dust mites and flaky asbestos all over again. Aside from himself and Richie they’re all fiddling with their crinkly shower caps, knees shaking, breathing too loud. Sucking in the damp earthen air that never feels fresh enough. Beverly lights her second cigarette in under five minutes, burning up yet more of their oxygen. Eddie keeps scratching his head, trying to pretend he isn’t combing through his hair for spiders just in case Richie sees and teases him for it, but then gets nervous they’ll think he has lice instead so forces his hands under his legs.

Bill, though, Bill is pacing. He’s grinding his teeth, too; Eddie can almost hear it, and it’s grating on him. _Doesn’t he know dental care’s expensive, and bruxism is the most common cause of tooth wear and jaw pain, and not reversible at all, he’ll need crowns and fillings and-_

“So, I duh-duh-don’t know ha-how to say this…”

Eddie’s mouth opens and he speaks it as he realizes it, before he even knows what he’s realizing: “You’re leaving.”

“I-I-I am.”

Beverly’s hand wobbles in front of her mouth, pinching so tightly around her cigarette that it bends. “When?” she asks.

“Tah-tah-two wuh-weeks.”

 _It’ll be good for them,_ Eddie thinks, picturing in his mind Bill’s weeping parents prostrating themselves over Georgie’s cold bed, like a scene out of a renaissance painting where the pain is captured in golden spiral ratios of drama and hysterics. _It’ll be good for Bill, too._ He has to think that way because it’s either that or it's letting it hurt, it's getting up and breaking something and screaming how it’s not fucking fair. It's pretending like they didn't all see this coming from the day they heard the words "Georgie's missing."

Even forever doesn’t last for forever.

“I’ll come back when I cuh-cuh-cuh-can. I pruh-pruh-promise.”

Eddie’s watch starts to chitter at him that it’s time to take his medicine. He can almost hear his own mother in his head by now, humming so cheerfully as she arranges his daily assortments like she’s playing Mancala, quiet ‘oh’s to herself when she accidentally drops one in the wrong compartment and has to fish it back out, like she still thinks he isn’t old enough or smart enough to figure out which one is which. Quietly, burning hot under the attention of all six of his friends, he picks out his next dose from his pillbox and dry-swallows them all at once.

Richie, irritably, shoves his fingers up under his glasses and presses them against his eyelids, rubbing hard. “ _Eddie,_ ” he groans, but complains no more than that.

“Leave it alone, Richie,” Stan pipes up before anyone else can.

Part of Eddie wants to say “yeah, leave it alone, Richie” and another part, equally as indignant and twice as irrational, wants to turn to Stan and tell him “why don’t you mind your own business?” He does neither, says neither, because this isn’t about him. It’s supposed to be about Bill, still stuttering reassurances to them that he’ll come back every summer. _He fucking better._

Still, Richie gives him another one of those looks when he notices Eddie starting to shake his head at random intervals, trying to fight off the lethargy and blink his way through the dizziness that weighs his head this way and that. They all notice of course, but they like to ignore it, pretending Eddie isn’t on the verge of passing the fuck out every few hours whenever they’re together - no, not whenever, just when his mom makes him take those stupid orange pills. Richie stares and stares and stares, and eventually gets up to come sit beside him against the reinforced wall of the clubhouse, dragging Eddie sideways by his shoulder until he’s lying in Richie’s lap.

“You’re okay,” Richie whispers to him. His fingers make a stilted journey through Eddie’s hair. They stop and start, stop and start, moving to groom but always letting the locks fall through like he’s not quite sure what he’s doing or why Eddie’s letting him. “Just sleep.”

He sleeps, eyes closed off to Beverly’s tight-lipped concern, Mike’s curiosity, Bill’s lonely blues that they all know are about to get a lot lonelier when he’s finally gone. He listens to them as he drifts, Ben’s soft questions and Stan’s firm replies, Richie quietly reminding him he’ll feel better soon. Richie’s leg is warm when he wraps his arms around it to squeeze it tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... well, I'm off to bed. I hope you all are enjoying reading so far, thanks for giving this a shot!


End file.
